Hundreds of people showed up to a public meeting with federal officials in Salida, Colorado, to voice their support for protecting Browns Canyon, an area in southern Colorado well known for its whitewater rafting, fishing and outdoor recreation.

This is encouraging news, especially given that the bill, the Northern Nevada Land Conservation and Economic Development Act (H.R. 5205), advanced in the midst of Wilderness Week, a national event sponsored by The Wilderness Society and partner groups to bring Americans to D.C.

For decades, The Wilderness Society's magazine The Living Wilderness gave members and subscribers an inside look at efforts to conserve some of our country's most special wildlands, as well as travelogues, prose, photos, poems and art about the places themselves.

Befitting a pioneer nation, many of our most revered natural landscapes, from the Grand Canyon to Yosemite, are in the west. However, the roots of American conservation lie firmly in the eastern half of the country, as do many pieces of extraordinary designated wilderness.

Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Dunes Lakeshore and Nevada’s Pine Forest Range and Lyon County are under consideration to be protected as wilderness areas, part of a large backlog of public lands conservation bills.